[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O196Tm5Zg5Y%5D
Oldboy (2003) – Park Chan-wook
“Laugh and the world laughs with you. Weep and you weep alone”
A considerable amount of the attraction of Oldboy is the original soundtrack by Yeong-wook Jo and its theme song, “The Last Waltz”.
Previous “World Cinema Classics“
[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pdn6wrM1Hqw]
Andy Warhol by Jørgen Leth in 66 Scenes from America (1982)
“My name is Andy Warhol and I just finished eating a hamburger.”
Hjort: Some of your documentary films experiment interestingly with the relation between word and image. I’m thinking, for example, of “66 Scenes from America”, which presents a series of almost hyper-real, postcard-like images of America, that are identified, in a series of significantly delayed, laconic and minimalist comments. The longest sequence is that of Andy Warhol fastidiously eating a hamburger. Having completed this exercise, Warhol delivers the following line: ‘My name is Andy Warhol and I just finished eating a hamburger.’ What, exactly, is the purpose of the intentionally strained and awkward relation between images and words in “66 Scenes from America”? –Jørgen Leth interviewed by Mette Hjort & Ib Bondebjerg, September 2002
For reasons I better keep to myself, lest I bore you with my personal life, I feel today like superfluous man. So instead of boring you with stories of myself, I will try not to bore you within The Diary of a Superfluous Man (1850) by Turgenev, the Russian writer better known as the author of Fathers and Sons.
March 23. Winter again. The snow is falling in flakes. Superfluous, superfluous. . . . That’s a capital word I have hit on. The more deeply I probe into myself, the more intently I review all my past life, the more I am convinced of the strict truth of this expression. Superfluous–that’s just it. To other people that term is not applicable, . . . People are bad, or good, clever, stupid, pleasant, and disagreeable; but superfluous . . . no. Understand me, though: the universe could get on without those people too . . . no doubt; but uselessness is not their prime characteristic, their most distinctive attribute, and when you speak of them, the word ‘superfluous’ is not the first to rise to your lips. But I . . . there’s nothing else one can say about me; I’m superfluous and nothing more. A supernumerary, and that’s all. Nature, apparently, did not reckon on my appearance, and consequently treated me as an unexpected and uninvited guest. A facetious gentleman, a great devotee of preference, said very happily about me that I was the forfeit my mother had paid at the game of life. I am speaking about myself calmly now, without any bitterness. . . . It’s all over and done with!
Posted in life, literature
Orlando Furioso (1877) – illustration by Gustave Doré
See also this Ingres version I posted last October.
Posted in art, literature
Roger and Angelica (c.1910 ) – Odilon Redon
A dreamscape representing Roger and Angelica, the knight in shining armor and the maiden-in-distress from Orlando Furioso, by my favorite phantast Redon, painted with the same palette as La coquille (1912).
Posted in aesthetics, art, European culture, fantastique
[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSKzQGRYk0s%5D
Jour de fête (1949) – Jacques Tati
Previous “World Cinema Classics“
Over at ArtandPopularCulture book of the month is:
Lipstick Traces:
A Secret History of the 20th Century
Keywords: secret history – 20th century – counterculture
Cover: John Lydon
Previous entries have included:
Film as a Subversive Art
film – subversion – art
Cover: surrealist film Un chien andalou
[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9BGi8u8BtaA]
This Is Not a Love Song (1983) – Public Image Ltd
This Is Not A Love Song is a 1983 of the group Public Image Ltd.. It was written by Johnny Rotten, vocalist of Public Image Ltd. and the Sex Pistols and featured on the album This Is What You Want… This Is What You Get.
See previous entries in this series.
Posted in 1001 things to do before you die, dance, love, music
[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKz4qVmUz84]
Psyché Rock (1967) – Pierre Henry and Michel Colombier
If you’d like nearly the same with female vocals, try Roller Girl, another Colombier production from the same year (must have been the same studio session by the way the sound is so similar.)
See previous entries in this series.
Posted in 1001 things to do before you die, dance, music
[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rzpzpe_8gHQ]
Funny Games (1997) Michael Haneke
The previous “World Cinema Classics“
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